The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

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Reading stories about Apple's victory over Samsung in court over alleged infringement intellectual property I can't help but think back to the protests over Apple's labor standards in China, in particular in the Foxconn factories where iPhones were made. Despite the fact that these jobs were good factory jobs in China, and that they may simply lead to manufacturers to replace the workers with robots, consumers made a lot of noise over this and got Apple to subject itself to increased monitoring and pressed Foxconn into giving raises. But where are the protests of Apple's attempts to squelch competition and reduce consumer choices through lawsuits and aggressive patenting?

Consumers may mistake this for a fight between Apple and Samsung, but consider Apple's move to have the following eight Samsung smartphones banned in the wake of winning the trial:

This isn't just Apple trying to get Samsung banned from selling these phones, this is effectively equivalent to Apple trying to get consumers banned from buying them. And yet I see little to nothing in the way of consumer protests. Sure other companies are guitly of aggressive use of IP and trying to block Apple and other competitor products, but why haven't consumers protested them either?

You might object that nobody is going to stop buying iPhones, other gadgets, and software that is defended with inefficiently aggressive use of IP law, so consumers have nothing to threaten. If all smartphone makers are offenders, you can't threaten to abandon them all. But I very much doubt that many people actually sold, threw out, or didn't buy an iPhone because they were upset about Foxconn. It is more the indirect effect of having a tarnished image, and the long-run pressure that places on sales. For good or for ill, the Foxconn protests put pressure on Apple. I see no reason why equally strong protests against inefficiently aggressive IP litigiousness can't have the same effect.

If it would help (and even if it wouldn't) it raise the question of why aren't consumers protesting? The welfare effects of what Apple is doing are much more likely to be negative than in the case of Foxconn labor standards, pink slime, or any of the other consumer protests that press companies into action. Are consumers simply confused about which company behaviors have negative welfare effects and which don't? Surely a large part of the explanation for why they protest is to signal, but why doesn't protesting for greater welfare increases signal caring even more strongly than protesting for questionable welfare increases? I don't have an answer for this.